Online Information Is Forever
One of the reasons information exposed online puts you at such great
risk is because, once it’s out there, it stays out there. Comments,
actions, or images posted online may stay online long after you delete
the material from your site or request that a friend delete your infor-
mation from his or her site. You won’t know who else has downloaded
what you wrote or what search engine crawled (automatically searched
the Internet) and stored a photo. You can’t know who else sees your
comments and judges you by them, nor will you have the opportunity,
in most cases, to explain. (See Chapter 7 for more about sharing infor-
mation safely online).Another aspect of information permanence is the difficulty it presents
when you want to distance yourself from something in your past or go
in new directions. Perhaps you no longer want to be associated with an
old relationship, but the information remains online to haunt you and
for anybody to come across.Anyone — with good intentions, as well as those with intent to do
harm — can dip into your public virtual bucket and search for your
information years from now. It may be the new pastor at your church,
a potential employer, a new friend, or your grandchildren who discover
something you’d rather keep private. Or it could be an identity thief,
any other kind of predator, or anyone in your life who wants to lash
out at you to cause harm.What seems like a good idea at the time may come back to bite you in
a variety of ways, so think before you post. It’s far easier to think twice
and refrain from posting than it is to try to take it back. By doing so,
you can control your information exposure and privacy while staying
safer online.21Chapter 1: Understand What’s Going On Out There